The Phnom Penh Post

Construction at the controversial Lower Sesan II dam site in Stung Treng province has already begun, according to villagers, who will today petition several ministries, the Chinese embassy and the headquarters of the Royal Group to open negotiations with them. According to the villagers, who travelled ...

Mondulkiri villagers seized seven chainsaws on Tuesday from illegal loggers claiming to be selling timber to logging tycoon Try Pheap’s company. A group of ethnic Pnong villagers came across the three illegal loggers during a patrol of their community forest on Tuesday, according to Bil Vanthy, ...

Authorities in Pursat’s Krakor district yesterday ordered a cassava company to stop clearing land on which more than 60 families claim they have planted rice and other crops since 1997, villagers and a company official said. Following protests in Anlong Tnort commune on Tuesday, villager Lim ...

Cambodia’s exports to the United States, the country’s biggest market, were valued at about $2.8 billion last year, a three per cent rise from $2.7 billion in 2012, according to fresh statistics from the US Department of Commerce. Ken Ratha, a spokesman for Cambodia’s Ministry of ...

Hundreds of youth activists have deployed to the provinces to collect signatures for a petition calling for an amendment to the election law that would allow direct elections for district, city and provincial councillors. The current system sees the Kingdom’s more than 11,000 sitting commune councillors ...

NGOS have accused logging tycoon Try Pheap’s MDS Import-Export Company – which had a licence to clear forest during the construction of the Stung Atai hydropower dam in Pursat – of continuing to log the area despite the dam being finished. Ouch Leng, director of the ...

Overall revenue from Cambodia’s booming tourism sector reached $2.5 billion last year, according to Tourism Minister Thong Khon. Khon said in an interview on Tuesday that the figure, which does not reflect the amount the state collected in taxes on the sector, marked a 15 per ...

Cambodia’s long-awaited resumption of international adoptions will soon take another tenuous step forward with a US State Department program that will see local adoption officials flown to the United States for training. The initiative, pegged an “informational visitor’s program”, follows on the heels of a January ...

In 2009, a railway project official arrived at 45-year-old Ry Preng’s home in Por Sen Chey district and spray-painted “1.042” in red on the side of his house. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but was told that at some point he would need to ...

After protesting in front of government offices yesterday, more than 60 retired soldiers received pensions that had been withheld for close to a year. The 64 Preah Sihanouk veterans gathered in front of the Department of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation told the Post that ...

The Anti-Corruption Unit on Monday ordered the arrest and imprisonment of a former Preah Vihear province tax official who was convicted in absentia in December and sentenced to three years in prison for exploiting his position for personal gain. According to the ACU’s announcement, former provincial ...

Cambodia suffers from severe annual flooding, and many people who can’t swim die every year as a result. An innovative solution to the generations-old problem may have been found, not by policy hacks or scientists, but by children. A group of 11-year-olds from Cambodia’s one-of-a-kind Liger ...

A senior ruling party lawmaker has rejected allegations that the group of 21 activists, unionists and workers arrested during protests last month and denied bail for a second time yesterday are being used as a political tool by the government to force the opposition party ...

Workers at Dongdu Textile in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district ended a two-week strike yesterday after their bosses agreed to reinstate 11 union leaders and activists fired in January. Chhin Sony, president of the government-aligned Union of Cambodia, said more than 2,000 workers returned to the factory ...

The Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a joint memo yesterday advising recipients to take measures to ban smoking in public places. The “circular” is the first of its kind in Cambodia, and is to be distributed by all government ministries in ...

About 200 families from Mondulkiri’s Keo Seima district filed a complaint on Sunday against a Vietnamese-owned company alleged to have razed more than 3,500 hectares of community forest since 2010, villagers and a rights group said yesterday. A rubber concessionaire identified as Sovan Reachsey has been ...

Wing, a growing Cambodian mobile payment and money transfer company, had a better-than-expected 2013. In May, Wing’s CEO Anthony Perkins estimated that the company would reach transaction volumes totaling $1 billion by the end of the year, including domestic remittances, mobile phone top ups, bills and ...

Cambodian bloggers and journalists often self-censor out of fear that they could face legal or physical threats, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights said in a report on freedom of expression released yesterday. The policy brief, a summary of six roundtable discussions held over the past ...

Cambodia’s largest hydropower plant to date, the Stung Russey Chrum, is operational. The 338-megawatt dam, located in Koh Kong’s Mondul Sima district forest, produced and transmitted electricity to Phnom Penh last month, according to its developer, China Huadian Corporation. “It is the biggest and best dam we ...

Defence attorneys will now turn to the Supreme Court after a Court of Appeals judge denied bail this morning for all 21 people still detained from clashes with authorities during garment strike demonstrations last month. The presiding judge said he decided not to allow bail based ...

Labour Minister Ith Sam Heng and ministry spokesman Heng Sour yesterday accused unions and the opposition of derailing the government’s efforts at minimum wage reform by striking and stirring up violence for their own political gain. “The government has set up a committee to study the ...

A dispute has erupted off the coast of Sihanoukville. On one side is the country’s aviation authority, backed by the local airport. On the other side are a couple of guys and a few flying boats. The State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA) said yesterday that ...

Despite the country remaining trapped in a tense political stalemate that shows no signs of abating, Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday reiterated that the government would continue working as normal while the opposition’s boycott of parliament continues. “I will not talk about the political situation, as ...

Teng Khorn’s living room is under a tree, his bedroom in a boat hauled up on a slipway for caulking beside the mangroves that lead to his source of income: the sea. His choice of abode is also his act of defiance against the monolithic Chinese ...